


A Relevant Set of Implications

by dannyPURO



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, And Also Uhhhhhh, Enjolras Is Bad At Feelings, Fluff and Angst, Grantaire Cares a Lot, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, M/M, Miscommunication, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-04-05 06:15:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19042813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dannyPURO/pseuds/dannyPURO
Summary: So, the protest wasn’t exactly… It wasn’t great.Ha, Grantaire’s pretty sure that’s the understatement of the decade. It was fucking chaos, that’s what it was. It was people yelling, scrambling to get off the streets and out of the crowd and away from the water canons, and teargas hanging like fog in the air and gendarmes fucking everywhere, and it was-It was Enjolras, at Grantaire’s side one moment and the next? Just fucking gone. He’d looked, God knows he’d looked, for a flash of golden hair, of bright red jacket, but… nothing. Nothing.





	A Relevant Set of Implications

So, the protest wasn’t exactly… It wasn’t great.

Ha, Grantaire’s pretty sure that’s the understatement of the decade. It was fucking  _ chaos,  _ that’s what it was. It was people yelling, scrambling to get off the streets and out of the crowd and away from the water canons, and teargas hanging like fog in the air and gendarmes fucking everywhere, and it was-

It was Enjolras, at Grantaire’s side one moment and the next? Just fucking  _ gone.  _ He’d looked, God knows he’d looked, for a flash of golden hair, of bright red jacket, but… nothing. Nothing.

And then the crowd had shoved at him, pushed him away, and he’d made his way to Jehan’s place, where they were supposed to meet if anything happened, only for Combeferre to ask  _ him  _ where Enjolras was. 

He could hardly respond, what with the blood rushing in his ears and the enormous fucking pit in his stomach.

They’d waited, of course. Stayed up, all together in Jehan’s apartment, until midnight, which doesn’t seem very long but which, under the circumstances, seemed fucking endless. Joly cleaned wounds and bandaged them silently, his hands shaking like they never do. Jehan flitted from person to person, offering food, tea, anything, until they sat down against Grantaire’s side and pressed their face into his shoulder and just breathed. Combeferre sat on a chair in the corner, face in his hands, looking as though he was about to vomit.

And Enjolras still hadn’t come back.

If any of les Amis could tell that Grantaire was way, way more freaked out than he had any right to be (which, admittedly, they probably could), they were kind enough not to say anything.

But midnight came and went, and Enjolras still wasn’t there, and Jehan stood up with a sigh. “You should all go home and get some sleep,” they’d said, as though any of them would be able to. “I’ll sleep on the couch, I’ll hear if he knocks.”

Grantaire took the metro home and ran his fingers over the bandage on his knee and tried very hard not to burst into tears. It’s raining, by now, coming down in heavy sheets that chill him to the bone, and at the very least, he finds himself thinking, the weather matches the situation perfectly.

But that’s all how he ends up as he is now--on his sofa, curled up under a blanket in his pajamas, staring at the crack in his drywall and wondering whether Enjolras is dead.

He might be, he supposes. He’d sooner die than miss a meeting. Or, Grantaire figures, he might have been arrested. That’s more likely, technically a relief, because at least-

Grantaire would visit him in prison if Enjolras wanted him to. He’d do anything if Enjolras wanted him to. 

God, he hopes nothing happened to Enjolras. He hopes he isn’t, like, bleeding out in an alley somewhere, wondering- 

Wondering where everyone is, wondering why nobody’s coming, wondering why nobody’s looking.

Grantaire’s crying a little, but, like, whatever. 

(If he loses Enjolras, he’s not sure what he’ll do.)

(If he loses Enjolras, he’s lost everything.)

It’s all a little ridiculous, actually-- It’s not like Enjolras holds any affection for  _ him.  _ Hell, Enjolras doesn’t even  _ like  _ him. Grantaire is a big old creepy creep who’s way, way too enamored with someone who is so out of his league it’s not even funny, and it’s ridiculous, and it’s embarrassing, and-

And it doesn’t matter, because the fact of the matter is that Grantaire  _ does  _ love Enjolras, and more importantly, Enjolras is missing. 

Fuck.

He pulls the blanket tighter around himself and keeps on staring at the crack in his wall, because there’s nothing else to do but-

He scrambles for his phone, shoots a text to Jehan.  _ text me if enj shows?? _

They reply in an instant.  _ Of course.  _ Another text comes through.  _ No sign of him yet, though. _

Grantaire tosses his phone back onto the sofa and buries his face in the blanket and lets himself cry.

He isn’t sure how long he cries for. He knows he drifts off, though, right there on the couch, because he jolts awake to a knock at his door. He groans, disentangles himself from the blanket, gets to his feet. It’s probably Joly, he guesses, although Bossuet’s in town, so it doesn’t really make sense that he’d go to Grantaire’s. Or maybe it’s Jehan, but Jehan is supposed to be watching for Enjolras. Or maybe it’s Éponine, maybe something happened to Gavroche, maybe-

He opens the door and stops in his tracks. 

Enjolras is there, slumped against the doorframe and shivering and absolutely soaked to the bone.

“Enjolras?” he hears himself murmur.

“I don’t-” Enjolras mumbles, “It’s-”

Grantaire realizes, in a flash, just how cold it’s gotten. Just how thin Enjolras’s jacket is. Just how hard he’s shaking. “Shit, Enj, you-”

He- was that a sob? “Grantaire, R, I-”

Grantaire is pulling him inside before he can even think. “Okay, okay, um-” (Enjolras is trembling beneath his hands and so, so cold) “So I’m, um, I’m pretty sure you have hypothermia, so-” (He’s pretty sure Enjolras isn’t even listening to him) “So-” (He tries, so hard, to remember what you’re supposed to do with someone with hypothermia but it’s really difficult to do so when Enjolras is here and so fucking  _ pale  _ and so fucking  _ cold.)  _ “So- Clothes!”

He’s pushing Enjolras’s jacket from off his shoulders before he can explain, because this is important, this matters. “We need to get you out of your wet clothes,” he says, starting on Enjolras’s shirt. “Like, right away, so- So I’m gonna grab you some dry clothes and, like, all the blankets I own, and you can finish getting them off, okay?”

He’s running, he knows he is, he’s scrambling around his apartment like a damn fool, but that hardly matters. He grabs clothes from his wardrobe--an old, soft t-shirt, a sweatshirt, some boxers, his warmest pair of sweatpants. Socks. He brings all that and a towel and the blankets off his bed and from the closet back into the living room, and-

And Enjolras is just… just  _ standing  _ there, in the same state of half-undress Grantaire left him in, staring blankly at the wall. 

“Shit, Enj, you gotta-” Enjolras looks up, then, looks up at Grantaire with big, scared eyes, and Grantaire, if he wasn’t before, feels absolutely terrified. “You gotta get undressed, I brought you new clothes but you need to get out of anything wet, it’s-” he breaks off.

Enjolras, finally, drops his hands to his fly, but his fingers are slow, fumbling, and Grantaire doesn’t know what to do but to step closer and nudge his hands away and undo the buttons himself. He finds himself thinking, distantly, as he tugs Enjolras’s jeans down his legs, that in any other situation, he’d be having wet dreams about this for months. Now, nothing matters anywhere near as much as fucking  _ fixing  _ this. 

Enjolras tugs down his own underwear, though. Small blessings.

And then Enjolras is standing stark naked in Grantaire’s living room, still dripping water and shivering like he’ll never get warm again. Grantaire fumbles around behind himself, gets his hands on the towel he dumped unceremoniously on the couch, earlier, and… does what he can.

He dries Enjolras’s hair, first, which may not have been the best decision, because it means that the towel is wet from there on out, but at the very least, it’s stopped dripping icy water in rivulets down Enjolras’s face. (It puffs up, a little, when Grantaire dries it, and Grantaire very bravely resists the urge to press a kiss to the top of Enjolras’s cheekbone, just one.) He remembers, at least, what Joly told him about Hypothermia, and he’s gentle--he dries Enjolras’s hands, and his arms, and his back, gentle as anything, and then when he gets to Enjolras’s front, he’s more so. 

He dries his legs and very carefully does not think about Enjolras’s dick.

Enjolras moves slow, clumsy, so dressing him takes too long, even with Grantaire moving as fast as he can. (It’s a relief for many reasons when it’s finally done.) He stands there, shivering and pale, in Grantaire’s old clothes, staring at Grantaire with huge eyes.

“Enj?” Grantaire asks, taking a step closer.

Enjolras, to his horror, hiccups a little sob. “I-” He takes a deep, shuddering breath. “I-”

“Enjolras?”

“I’m sorry,” he chokes out, and then he’s crying, properly crying, all curled in on himself and shaking, and Grantaire’s heart just about breaks. 

He’s wrapping Enjolras up in his arms before he even realizes he’s doing it, but by then it’s too late to pull away, because Enjolras is clinging to him, holding tight, his face buried in Grantaire’s neck. And he’s still so, so cold, God, he’s freezing. 

“I’m sorry,” Enjolras says, again. “I know you don’t- I’m-” he lets out another sob. “I’m so cold,” he whispers.

Grantaire walks them backwards to the couch. Enjolras shuffles with him, staying close, and when Grantaire lets go, just to wrap him in a blanket, he whimpers, leans into Grantaire’s every touch. 

Grantaire very carefully focuses on propping Enjolras up on the sofa and tucking as many blankets around him as he can. One of them, he pulls over Enjolras’s head like a very lumpy hood. 

Enjolras is still crying, all wrapped up in his blanket cocoon, still shivering. Grantaire’s heart fucking  _ aches,  _ God, he’s never seen Enjolras anything close to like this.

Grantaire gives in (and whether it’s to Enjolras or to himself, he can’t quite say) and sits down on the couch beside him, wraps an arm around his shoulders. 

They sit like that, just like that, for a while. Enjolras leans into his touch so deeply that Grantaire can feel him breathing, even through the blankets. So deeply that when his breath starts hitching, again, Grantaire can feel that, too.

“I’m sorry,” Enjolras whispers, yet again, and Grantaire pulls him closer. 

“It’s okay,” he says, because it is, whatever Enjolras is apologizing for. “Just, Enjolras, what  _ happened?  _ You- _ ”  _ he takes a breath. “You just… disappeared, you were right there, and then you weren’t, and now you’re all-” he gestures vaguely at Enjolras

He shakes his head slowly. His lip is trembling. “I didn’t… I didn’t  _ mean  _ to.”

Grantaire puts his face in his hands, just for a moment. “Shit, Enj, I-” God, Enjolras is so out of it. “I know, it’s not… I’m not  _ mad,  _ or anything, I just,” he swallows. “We were worried. Where were you?”

He takes a deep, shuddering breath. “The crowd pushed me away, and then- And there was a gendarme, and he grabbed me, and I got away, and I hid in an alley but then they were outside and I couldn’t leave and my phone is… is gone, and then it started raining, and I was so, so cold, and I didn’t know where I was, and- and-” he breaks off, shuts his eyes. “I’m  _ cold. _ ”

And Grantaire is loathe to leave Enjolras’s side, but he has to do  _ something.  _ He stands. “I’m gonna make you something warm to drink,” he says. “Um, do you want- I’ve got tea, and I might have cocoa.”

Enjolras might have shrugged, but it’s hard to tell under all the blankets. Otherwise, he stares down at Grantaire’s floorboards.

Grantaire makes him tea. He makes it sweeter than he’d drink, personally, and he keeps glancing back into the living room, because what if, what if, what if. He finds a thermometer in the junk drawer (and shoots off a little prayer to whatever deity might be listening), and takes them both back in to Enjolras.

Enjolras is right where Grantaire left him, leaning up against the side of the couch, eyes shut. 

“Enj?” Grantaire finds himself asking.

He keeps his eyes shut, but he nods against the armrest. He’s still shaking. (Grantaire wants nothing more but to hold him close and make it better.) “I’m just… I’m  _ cold,  _ Grantaire.”

Grantaire sinks to a crouch by his head and gently, gently lays a hand on his cheek. He feels a little warmer, a little less icy, than before, and Grantaire breathes a little easier. “I’ve got,” he fumbles for the thermometer, “I’ve got a thermometer, I’m gonna take your temperature, okay?”

Enjolras nods but does not, Grantaire notices, open his mouth.

Grantaire, shocked by his own nerve, shifts his hand down to Enjolras’s chin and opens Enjolras’s mouth for him. Enjolras doesn’t protest.

He puts the thermometer in his mouth, shuts it for him. (God, what is he doing?)

Enjolras just leans into his hand where it’s still resting on his cheek.

It’s shamefully easy to stay, just like that, hand on Enjolras’s cheek, until the thermometer beeps. 

Enjolras opens his mouth obediently. 

Grantaire checks the thermometer, pushes Enjolras a little further upright. “Thirty-four and a half,” he reads aloud. Then, to Enjolras, “Listen, I think you’re supposed to stay awake.”

He grumbles, opens his eyes. And that’s better, of course, but it’s also… not, because now he’s just looking at Grantaire like Grantaire can fix this. (Christ, why is he  _ here,  _ why did he come to Grantaire’s apartment in the first place, why-)

“R?” Enjolras slips one pale, trembling hand out of the blankets, and Grantaire is taking it between his own without a second through, just on instinct. 

“Hmm?” He’s trying not to get distracted by Enjolras’s hand in his, but it’s a little hard. 

He swallows--Grantaire can see his Adam’s Apple jump. “Do you think-” He tugs at Grantaire, a little. 

He frowns. “Enj?”

One of Enjolras’s curls drops into his face. Enjolras doesn’t move to brush it away, so Grantaire does, and he lets his hand linger, just a little. (It’s not weird if Grantaire is taking care of him, it’s not weird if Enjolras needs help, it’s not weird.) Enjolras just leans into the touch. “Sit with me again,” he murmurs. “Please.”

And who is Grantaire to say no? He sets the thermometer on the coffee table, and when he turns around, Enjolras has lifted the side of his blanket pile up, leaving it open for Grantaire, and-

“Fuck, are you crazy?” Grantaire says, because Enjolras has  _ hypothermia,  _ what the fuck is he doing lifting up blankets and exposing limbs willy-nilly? “Jesus, just-” And then he’s clambering under the blankets beside Enjolras, if only to get him to  _ put them down.  _

Enjolras tenses against him. “‘M sorry,” he says, and Grantaire swears under his breath again. God, he doesn’t know what to do with… with any of this. But certainly not with Enjolras like this, all… fragile. Sensitive. (Close.)

He sighs, pulls Enjolras closer. “No, just…” He grabs Enjolras’s tea from the coffee table, presses it into his hands. “Just  _ stay warm,”  _ he says, and if he slips a little, lets on just how much it matters, well…

Well, Enjolras is probably too out of it to notice, anyways. Small miracles.

Enjolras drinks his tea slowly and slumps against Grantaire’s side so thoroughly that Grantaire can practically feel the exhaustion coming off him in waves. He’s still shaking. 

Grantaire pulls Netflix up on his phone and queues up a food documentary and holds Enjolras close and tries to reassure himself that Enjolras will get better. Because he will, he’ll warm up and he’ll be fine by tomorrow, (and he’ll never sit this close to Grantaire again), and everything will be okay. 

He shifts a little against Grantaire. “I’m tired,” he says, and Grantaire tries not to read too much into it, because it’s probably fine that he’s tired, probably normal--it’s well past three, and Enjolras has been awake for going on twenty four hours, and the protest was chaos and he’d been outside for hours, it’s probably fine, just-

Enjolras lies down on the sofa. A second later, he’s tugging at Grantaire to join him, pulling at his sleeve. “You’re so warm,” he says, voice muffled against the blankets, and, well-

Grantaire can’t really deny Enjolras anything at the best of times. He lies down to, pressed against Enjolras’s back, arms wrapped around his waist, nose at the back of his neck. “Don’t fall asleep,” he says.

“I won’t.”

They watch the documentary. Grantaire shakes Enjolras every few minutes, when his eyes start to slip closed and tries very hard not to think about the fact that this is, in fact, Enjolras that he’s pressed flush against. Enjolras, who has been the subject of all of his wet dreams for the past six years (except for those weird Keanu Reeves ones, but that’s… that’s not the topic at hand.) Enjolras, who Grantaire is totally, pathetically in love with.

Enjolras, who barely tolerates Grantaire on a good day.

Fuck.

He nudges Enjolras again. 

The documentary plays on. 

Grantaire is pretty sure Enjolras feels a little warmer under his hands. At the very least, he’s stopped shivering so hard it must hurt. He reaches for the thermometer on the coffee table, does his best not to jostle Enjolras too much in the process. “Enj,” he says. “Here, open up, I’m gonna-”

Enjolras opens his mouth, lets Grantaire take his temperature. Grantaire lets himself twist the ends of Enjolras’s curls around his fingertips in the meantime.

The thermometer beeps.  _ 36,  _ it reads, and Grantaire looks Enjolras over again, thinks about how  _ exhausted  _ he looks, and decides to let him sleep.

Enjolras drifts off fast. Grantaire lets his hand shift up from his waist to his chest and feels his heartbeat under his hand and takes just a moment to relish in it, to tell himself that yes, Enjolras is fine, he’s fine, he’s okay.

He calls Jehan once he’s sure that Enjolras is well and truly asleep. They answer after two rings, groggy but, at the very least, awake. “R?” they mumble. “Something wrong?”

Grantaire looks at the mess of golden curls in front of his eyes. “I have Enjolras.”

A pause. “What?”

“Enjolras is at my place. He showed up a few hours ago.”

The breath Jehan lets out is loud through the speakers. “Oh, thank God. Is he… is he okay?”

Grantaire takes a moment, just to feel Enjolras breathing. “Yeah, he’s okay, but he-” his throat is tight, traitorous. “He was so cold, Jehan, he- he was fucking hypothermic, and… and he’s fine, but he was so fucking  _ cold. _ ”

“But he’s okay?” They ask again.

Enjolras shifts a little in his sleep, presses back further against Grantaire. 

“Yeah,” Grantaire says. “He’s okay.”

“You should tell Combeferre,” Jehan says. 

They’re right, of course. “I will,” he says. “Just thought I’d call you first so you can get some sleep.”

“Thanks, R,” they say, and it sounds like they really, really mean it. Another pause. “Are you okay?”

He lets out a noncommittal noise. “Maybe.” Enjolras, so close, breathes deep and steady and regular. “I’m still a little freaked,” he admits. 

“Yeah.” They’re both quiet for a moment, and then Jehan says, “Listen, I’m gonna get some sleep.”

“Right, right, yeah. G’night, Jehan.”

“Goodnight, R.”

Grantaire hangs up.

Enjolras looks so incredibly peaceful when he’s asleep. (God, Grantaire wishes this wasn’t the only time he’d ever get to see this. God, he wishes that this wasn’t all soiled by the fact that two hours ago he’d been fucking terrified that Enjolras was going to fucking  _ die. _ )

He calls Combeferre. Combeferre doesn’t pick up, though, which is probably good, because it means he’s getting at least a little sleep, so Grantaire sends him a text.  _ Enjolras is at my apartment,  _ he writes.  _ Was hypothermic, is now fine and sleeping.  _

It’s almost five, and Grantaire sets his phone down on the coffee table and buries his face in the back of Enjolras’s neck and lets himself cry from the relief.

“I don’t know what I would’ve done,” he murmurs, soft as anything, because if he wakes Enjolras, he’ll have to explain, and he doesn’t really have an explanation for why he’s cuddled way closer than is surely permitted and baring his fucking heart and soul. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if you weren’t okay.”

Enjolras grumbles a little in his sleep but doesn’t stir, thank the Lord. 

Grantaire keeps talking. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if you- if you died, and I never-” he takes a deep breath. “I love you,” he whispers, flush against Enjolras’s neck. 

 

Grantaire doesn’t remember making the decision to go to sleep, but he definitely didn’t decide to do anything else, either, so it’s not really a surprise when he wakes up on the couch to afternoon sunlight streaming through his window. Afternoon sunlight streaming through his window and a crick on his neck from sleeping on the couch and nothing in his arms but a ridiculous number of quilts, that is, and so many notifications on his phone it takes a decent chunk of time just to scroll through them. 

Enjolras has probably gone home, he figures. God knows if he were Enjolras and he’d woken up to find an ugly bum clinging to him like a limpet, he’d be out of there just as fast. Ah, well. Such is life. 

He stands, stretches, shuffles to the kitchen to make himself some coffee, and he finds himself frozen in the doorway. Because Enjolras is at his kitchen table, reading the paper and drinking coffee from Grantaire’s favorite mug and still dressed in Grantaire’s clothes and looking so… well, that for a moment, Grantaire finds himself wondering whether last night even happened.

(Enjolras looks more than just  _ well _ \--he looks radiant, beautiful, stunning, golden, perfect. Back to the Enjolras Grantaire fawns over, stares at, hassles at meetings. Back to the unattainable.)

But then Enjolras spots him, stiffens, sets the paper down, and Grantaire thinks  _ no, yeah, last night definitely happened,  _ because Enjolras is always strange around him, but it’s never been this blatant before.

“Good morning,” Grantaire says, in an effort to act like a normal human being. 

Enjolras nods, fixes his eyes on the tabletop. (Ouch.) “I made coffee.”

Grantaire pours himself a cup of the coffee and sits down across from the table and tries to ignore the fact that his heart is pounding in his ears because God, what does Enjolras want from him, what does-

“Thank you,” Enjolras says, finally, a little too loud. He clears his throat, tries again. “I wanted to thank you for last night. And-” he sighs, picks at a whorl on the table with his fingernail. “I wanted to apologize. For imposing on you.”

Grantaire stares at him. “You-”

“I had no right to simply show up at your apartment uninvited. It was… Incredibly rude of me.” 

Grantaire is kind of getting the impression that Enjolras planned this speech in advance. He’s also kind of getting the impression that Enjolras is fucking  _ crazy.  _ “Are you fucking crazy?” he asks, because, well, it’s on his mind. “You had hypothermia.”

Enjolras clenches his jaw, unclenches it. “And I apologize.”

He has to take a long, slow sip of his coffee so he doesn’t do something stupid like yell at Enjolras or press him up against the wall and kiss him until he realizes what an idiot he is, sometimes. “You apologize,” he says, slow, “For getting hypothermia?”

“No, I-” he takes a breath. He still won’t meet Grantaire’s eyes. “I apologize for coming here. For making you deal with it. With me. I made a fool of myself last night, and I can’t even imagine what you must think of me, I-” he breaks off.

Seriously, Enjolras is amazing and all, but sometimes, he’s the most ridiculous person he’s ever met. “What, was I supposed to just leave you out there to freeze to death? It was hardly an- an- an  _ annoyance,  _ Apollo.”

“It’s not about that! I know you-” his voice breaks, just a little, and his voice is soft, now. “I know you don’t like me very much. And so I apologize for imposing, and I wanted to thank you for- You were very kind, last night. I wanted to thank you, because you didn’t have to be, and I know you probably-” he shrugs.

Grantaire is staring. He can’t quite make his throat make sound. “You-” there’s a lot to address, there. “You think I don’t like you?”

Enjolras flushes a violent pink. “I’m not trying to- to make you feel guilty, or anything. It’s fine, I know I’m a bit much, and I know I’m not- You’re really kind, and funny, and nice to be around, and I’m not, really, so I understand. It’s not a big deal.”

Grantaire can’t really breathe. “I like you,” he manages. (God, if there’s not too much truth to that.)

He scowls, looks back at the table. “It’s  _ fine,”  _ he says. “I’m really not- I’m used to it, okay? I’m not going to- to pitch a fit, or try to guilt you into being my friend, or anything. You don’t have to lie.”

What kind of alternate reality has Grantaire found himself in? “I’m not lying,” he says, because this is- this is important, it’s important that Enjolras knows, even if it comes at the expense of Grantaire’s shame. “I like you a lot. I was kind of freaking out all last night, just because nobody knew where you were, and I was scared something happened.”

Enjolras keeps his gaze resolutely on the table.

“I didn’t mind that you came over. Really.”

“I made you stay up all night.” 

“I didn’t mind,” Grantaire stresses, and he’s reaching across the table for Enjolras’s hand before he can help himself. (God, one night of being allowed to touch and he’s lost his fucking mind.)

Enjolras stares at Grantaire’s hand atop his own. And Grantaire almost pulls it away, almost apologizes, but then Enjolras is speaking. “You’re really not lying?” he asks, voice tentative like it never is, like it never was, not around Grantaire, before last night.

“No, Enj, you’re-” Grantaire clears his throat, and never mind if he makes an ass of himself, this is more important. “You’re kind of amazing, alright? And you’re crazy smart, and you’re passionate, and you’re brave, and- and you do such amazing things, and you care so much about your friends, and you’re pretty much the most beautiful person in the world, and-”

Enjolras lifts their hands, still twined together, and presses a soft, tender kiss to Grantaire’s knuckles.

Grantaire gapes at him.

Enjolras stares back, eyes wide and horrified. “I-” he’s up from his chair in an instant, rattling the table when he bumps into it with his hip on the way up. “I’m sorry, I thought-” Grantaire can’t fucking think. “I thought- I’m sorry!” he gasps, and then he’s making for the door and all Grantaire knows is that he has to stop him.

He catches him by the wrist, when he can finally fucking  _ move _ , and Enjolras lets out a little whine before turning to face him. “Enj?” he asks, voice shot. “I- What?”

Enjolras is looking at Grantaire’s floorboards like they have the secrets to world peace written upon them. “I’m sorry,” he says, again, but that doesn’t- that doesn’t

“What?” Grantaire says, because that’s all he can think. That, and the fact that his hand is tingling like Enjolras’s lips are still there, still soft on his knuckles like something impossible, and- What?

“I’m  _ sorry,  _ it doesn’t have to be weird, you can forget all about it, it’s my fault, I just- I thought, maybe, and I shouldn’t have, but- but you don’t, and I-” he breaks off, looks up at Grantaire with big, pleading eyes, and it’s like a handful of puzzle pieces that Grantaire didn’t even fucking know he  _ had  _ fitted themselves into a strange, lopsided puzzle. (Enjolras came to his apartment, Enjolras came there first, Enjolras let Grantaire hold him close and fall asleep along his back, Enjolras likes Grantaire, Enjolras thought he was an imposition, Enjolras-)

“What did you think?” he breathes, because if- if Enjolras is saying what Grantaire thinks he’s saying, that’s-

“I thought-” Enjolras takes a deep, shuddering breath. The blush is back. “Maybe… I thought maybe- Maybe I had a chance?” His voice is impossibly soft.

“At what?”

Enjolras twists his wrist a little, pulls back just enough that Grantaire isn’t holding his wrist, he’s holding his hand, and- “I  _ like  _ you,” he whispers.

Grantaire’s heart  _ aches,  _ that’s how full it feels. “Yeah?” he asks, and he takes a step forward.

He nods.

Grantaire kisses him. Kisses him deep and solid and long, and walks them back until Enjolras is pressed up against the door, and then kisses him there.

Enjolras is whimpering beneath him, his hands fluttering about like he doesn’t know where to put them but he wants to put them  _ somewhere,  _ so Grantaire reaches back and takes them in his own and presses them against the door, too, and Enjolras moans, soft and gratified against Grantaire’s mouth.

When Grantaire finally breaks away, Enjolras stares at him, all huge eyes. 

“Yeah?” Enjolras asks. He hazards a smile. 

“Yeah,” Grantaire says, and he can’t stop himself from pulling Enjolras in close, holding him tight. Enjolras clutches back, hands twisted in the back of Grantaire’s shirt. He’s warm to the touch. “Yeah.”

**Author's Note:**

> so i guess i just write whatever the fuck i want now, huh?


End file.
